Faces of Popular Culture

While this reading covers a large body of information I don't think any article could represent the cultural identity or face of a region with so many backgrounds. I thought it was interesting how it focused on the middle ground between the traditional culture and the modern world of media. The connections between rural and urban culture are important because they represent people with different lives working together to sustain an identity for the entire region. These connections can be seen in art, music and religion as well as everyday life. I'm impressed by the way the radio was used to bring people together from very different backgrounds to create a hybrid of culture which could make it easier for everyone understand each other. The People's Radio is an effort to recover the voice of people, history, tradition, and religion to communicate the hopes and problems of the people. It seems symbolic that the culture and hopes of people in rural areas are transmitted over airwaves so their voices are heard by everyone. These people would not have an opportunity to represent themselves without the opportunity of independent radio as a medium. In the western world opportunities of expression are taken for granted but giving people who haven't been absorbed by modern culture a voice is unique.

The people

I find discussions of the people to be very interesting. Across the globe there are wealthy ruling classes which have some level of control over the masses and there is the rest of the people who are subjected to the decisions of the ruling class. The people are, as Peron says, the working class. The same working class who's jobs are threatened as a result of bad decisions which led to the world's recession. Peron describes oligarchies as the cowards who lie for money and essentially sell the happiness of their people. She describes the people who have the power to change lives as being indifferent saying "There is nothing we can do." Peron also condemns the ideology of capitalist imperialism which forces the people into slavery as it proclaims itself as the defender of freedom. According to this ideology capitalism and the decisions made by the ruling class result in diminished choices for the working class. As the world's economy is struggling there are even fewer opportunities to work out of poverty. Peron's language is often extreme but this is merely a reaction to the lack of options "the people" are given. When there isn't room for anything else it should be expected that the masses will turn to an extreme rhetoric of us vs. them. When the opposing class controls the military and police as the instrument of their will it is expected that the masses would follow extreme leaders. Peron doesn't advocate the murder of the oligarch class but merely their conversion to "the people,... of our class." When everyone lives off their own work and not someone elses everone will understand the common struggle. Then no one will want to become an exploiter of others. I liked when Peron talks about hunger as the weapon of imperialism. Scarcity is the means of dividing people across the globe. The working class is forced to compete for low paying jobs instead of the forces which exploit them. Scarcity is seen as a necessity for the capitalist system but this is yet to be determined.

Culture

I think that Mackenzie's description of culture as ordinary makes sense in the context of why people come together and pay attention to each other. Human beings need each other, for survival as well as self-awareness and expression. Mackenzie believes that societies are made by finding common meanings and directions. I interpret common meanings as common feelings. Hope, fear, happiness, and loneliness are things which we all experience. I especially like his analysis of education as ordinary and the emphasis of removing restrictions like money. It's an interesting idea that societies can move beyond the limitation of a maximum fraction of people cable of profiting by a higher education. It accompanies Mackenzies interpretation of an expanding culture which makes room for what he calls "bad" culture. Lower forms of art like television are a given as it is easier to distribute it and there is more leisure time to receive it. It does not necessarily destroy older less commercialized mediums of expression. I don't believe it necessarily separates classes either. What it does is causes the audience to be interpreted as an unknown mass, the unknown. Higher culture has an intended audience which fits the niche of a socioeconomic class like museums or theaters. I believe that if education were less restricted the barriers which seperate different mediums of expression would be seen by a greater audience of individuals as opposed to an unknown mass.

First blog

Hello internet, how's it going? My name is Andrew Matasovsky and this is my first blog. I'll give you a quick synopsis of my life story so you know where I'm coming from. I was born in 1988 to a construction worker and a freelance writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I grew up in Minnesota and I traveled to some places. I've been to seven other countries and I lived on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a while. Now I live in Vancouver and go to the University of British Columbia. Music is my favorite passion, but I also enjoy art and any kind of comedy. The year 2009 has just begun and it feels like a good year, possibly the best time around the sun.